Fecor refused to believe Bel Peol's words, stubbornly determined to take her along as they fled.
His Unrestricted Spell, Magnesia, also known as "Iron Wall," created perfectly formed cubes nearly impossible to break. In the original timeline, he'd been severely wounded and carelessly killed by the abruptly awakened Tenmoku Ikko wielding Nietono no Shana, a blade that could sever any Unrestricted Spell.
The army of undead—whether heavily armored skeletons, priest-like specters, or iron-bodied revenants—were swiftly shattered by those black cubes raining down from above. Only the immensely powerful yet scarce divine beasts, the sphinxes, could resist or evade his strikes.
When faced with sphinxes, Fecor didn't even attempt to kill them; instead, he blocked their path with massive cubes, preventing their advance and buying precious time for himself and Lady Strategist to retreat. The title "Iron Wall" clearly indicated Fecor's specialization in defense rather than offense.
The physical prowess of sphinxes rivaled even dragons, and they were adept in curses and sorcery—yet breaching the barricade before them was still challenging.
Fecor mentally estimated how much time his Unrestricted Spell could buy, inwardly filled with bitter regret. Had he known such a formidable enemy would appear, he wouldn't have sent "Destructive Blade" Sabrac away.
In his mind, had Sabrac been present, he might have distracted that monstrous enemy, since after all, Sabrac was already the strongest among them apart from the Trinity.
Although sending Sabrac out had been Bel Peol's order, Fecor never blamed his superior. Whenever something went wrong, he always faulted himself. Perhaps this very mindset was why he appeared as an overworked corporate drone.
Just as Fecor prepared to retreat with Bel Peol, their shadows, cast upon the ground by firelight above, suddenly thickened, turning viscous like mud. Fecor's feet began sinking slowly, as if stepping into marshland.
Fecor, preoccupied with the sphinxes, failed to notice—but Bel Peol did. Golden chains shot instantly from her hand, pulling Fecor away from that place.
The very next moment, Fecor watched in stunned disbelief as a massive, crocodile-like black head emerged from Bel Peol's shadow, opened its huge maw, and swallowed her whole. Witnessing this, Fecor's confusion and bewilderment gradually twisted into a mask of horror and anguish.
"Lady Strategist—!!"
High above, Sydonay swung Shintetsu Nyoi with absolute conviction, his fierce offensive resembling a relentless storm.
Clouds shredded like cloth; flames churned into whirlpools. Countless spear-images struck swift as lightning, weaving together an impenetrable net of thunder, slicing even light itself into fluttering fragments that fell below.
This destructive tempest annihilated everything caught within; no other Crimson Denizen or Flame Haze could even approach, let alone survive, such overwhelming tides of power.
This was the unmatched might of the strongest Crimson Lord beneath the Gods!
Those so-called "strong warriors," such as Margery Daw, the "Chanter of Elegies," or Wilhelmina Carmel, the "Manipulator of Objects," would struggle to withstand even the aftershock of his full-powered strike.
To defeat this formidable enemy before him and rescue Hecate, Sydonay had surpassed his own limits time after time. The Sydonay of the past could never have imagined himself capable of such power.
The reason he'd grown stronger was simple—pressure. In this age, with the Crimson Gods inactive, Sydonay had stood unchallenged at the top. Without any genuine threats, he'd relaxed for far too long, his abilities slowly eroding with complacency.
Yet facing Nitocris, Sydonay felt overwhelming, terrifying pressure. Driven by that pressure alone, he had continually shattered his own limits.
Until a certain moment arrived…
Nitocris knew—he had finally reached his endpoint.
No matter how much more pressure she applied, Sydonay would not grow stronger.
A dazzling sword-light extended from the tip of her grey blade, stretching endlessly like a waterfall descending from the heavens.
Exploding forward like silver lightning, that sword-light instantly pierced Sydonay's relentless barrage, silently slicing through his neck without a trace.
"This is…your limit."
Nitocris cast an indifferent glance at Sydonay's severed head as it tumbled from his shoulders, speaking softly.
Decapitation was undoubtedly fatal for humans—but not necessarily for Crimson Denizens, much less Sydonay, the "Thousand Changes."
Though he no longer had a head, no mouth with which to scream, the surrounding murky-purple flames roared in his stead, defiantly raging toward Nitocris.
Gripping his spear tightly, Sydonay raised his arm high. His muscles were taut, powerful as solid rock, surging with monstrous strength sufficient to shatter mountains and sever oceans!
Yet, before Shintetsu Nyoi could descend with thunderous force, a transparent, dazzling sword-light flashed ahead of it!
Soundless, trackless, instantaneous—no transition from "appearance" to "disappearance."
As if the universe itself had paused for a single blank frame, even space and time gave way before that gleaming silver arc.
Where the sword-tip passed, space parted soundlessly, splitting open like silk beneath a blade of ice.
Sydonay's spear-wielding arm soared skyward.
There was no sound of flesh being severed—for even sound itself had been cleaved by that unimaginably swift strike.
Nitocris reversed her grip on the grey blade, violently stabbing it through Sydonay's chest. The sword pierced through his body, scattering a burst of murky-purple flame.
Then, releasing her grip on the sword-hilt, she casually raised her hand, another identical grey blade instantly appearing in her grasp.
These grey swords—each capable of matching the divine Treasure Tool, Shintetsu Nyoi—Nitocris could conjure them at will.
With a flick of her wrist, the grey blade in her hand stabbed deeply through Sydonay's thigh.
Then a third, a fourth, a fifth—
Thirteen grey swords in total impaled Sydonay's body. Now he resembled a condemned criminal enduring execution by impalement.
And Sydonay himself appeared lifeless, a corpse run through by thirteen blades, motionless except for the purple sparks continuously sputtering from his severed arm and neck.
A long while later, one of the grey blades suddenly trembled.
Naturally, it wasn't the weapon—dead metal couldn't move—but the seemingly dead Sydonay himself.
At the severed arm, increasingly dense, hotter murky-purple flames gushed forth, not dispersing but coalescing into a flaming limb.
Facing the deity who looked down upon humanity, Sydonay roared with soul-burning defiance!
Taking one fierce step forward, his flaming arm swelled into a titanic form, fingers erupting as five violet-flame tornadoes upholding the sky, and within his open palm stretched an inverted ocean of fire.
That ocean of flames cascaded downward, a furious tide of falling skies.
Within it seemed the echoes of countless warriors responding to Sydonay's will, charging at his back, roaring in unison, surging forward together in his final, blazing charge.
"Foolishness. Approaching me (death) so blindly—do you desire oblivion that badly? With these weak, fleeting flames, you think you can pull a god down from her heavens?"
Facing Sydonay's utterly tragic final strike, Nitocris lowered her eyes slightly, her majestic voice resonating coldly:
"Very well. Then behold the Realm of Death."
With a brief revelation of her Authority of Death, Nitocris dragged Sydonay into her own divine domain.
This boundless desert—
This immense, star-studded ocean—
All was Death.
The deaths of humans, of animals…
The deaths of the righteous, the wicked, saints, sinners, men, women, elders, children…
Deaths by illness, by calamity, by wounds, by despair, by persecution, by honor, by hatred, by folly…
Billions upon billions of deaths, gathered here, became the endless grains of sand in the vast desert, became the countless stars scattered across the infinite cosmos.
This was the Underworld—
This was the realm of the Goddess of the Dead—
This was the domain that gathered all death.
Dragged into this place along with Sydonay was the raging murky-purple inferno behind him, roaring like an army of thousands.
Yet from the moment they entered this place, the murky-purple flames weakened at a visible rate, like ordinary fire suffocating in a void, as though one could hear their final, desperate cries before extinguishing.
Even flames must eventually meet their deaths. Even fires must inevitably burn out.
The closer Sydonay came to Nitocris, the greater his pain grew; the faster his murky-purple flames diminished.
Nitocris stood high above the heavens, the night draped upon her like a garment, stars and moons embroidered upon her robes. She was the sun high above, while Sydonay and his roaring tides of violet fire were like mere blocks of ice struggling to freeze the sun itself. Every step forward brought excruciating pain and further loss.
Tiny ice cubes could not freeze the sun—they would melt away entirely before ever reaching that radiance.
Eventually, the thunderous roar of Sydonay's thousand-fold army faded to silent screams; their silhouettes dissolved in the divine radiance. The murky-purple inferno finally vanished completely, without leaving behind even a wisp.
Only Sydonay himself continued climbing, continued pressing forward. His body dissolved over and over, reborn repeatedly in the murky-purple flames. Ultimately, only a vaguely human-shaped mass of violet fire remained, roaring defiantly at the god seated on her throne high above.
Step by step, inch by inch… beneath the indifferent gaze of those golden eyes, Sydonay's pace was small, yet unyielding.
The force propelling him forward was his love for Hecate, the desperate resolve to reclaim her.
Willpower could surpass physical limits, granting strength beyond reason. Sydonay threw all of his desires, emotions, and feelings into the flames, fueling them until they blazed fiercely enough to illuminate his path—until they propelled his broken body through the seemingly impenetrable wall ahead.
"Ghhhh… OOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!!"
At the very end, Sydonay could no longer even retain his human form. Only a ball of murky-purple flame, refusing to surrender, continued trudging forward.
That flame cracked and crumbled, shedding layers of itself like falling snow, turning to ash in the wind.
Just as it finally neared that distant, noble figure—as unreachable as the stars themselves—its fury, resentment, longing, resolve… all burned to nothing.
The murky-purple flames turned utterly grey-white in front of Nitocris, gently captured within her grasp.
"This place is forbidden to all who live, the final resting place of all who have died—a realm where even the sun's radiance cannot penetrate to awaken slumbering souls," Nitocris said indifferently. "Thus, your sacrifices yield nothing; your flames illuminate nothing within this darkness."
She felt no surprise at the outcome of the battle.
Indeed, Sydonay the "Thousand Changes" was extremely powerful, towering far above all other Crimson Lords beneath the gods. Yet no matter how mighty, he was still merely a Crimson Lord, not a Crimson God.
A Crimson Denizen could grow powerful enough to become a Crimson Lord, but a Crimson Lord—no matter how powerful—could never ascend to become a Crimson God. Unlike Denizens or Lords, Crimson Gods could no longer even be called living beings—they were conceptual existences, embodiments of law and order, supreme beings transcending the mortal plane entirely.
Nitocris's two primary targets—the Supreme Priestess Hecate and the Arbiter of Reverse Reasoning Bel Peol—had already fallen into her hands, imprisoned within this divine realm. With them, plus the Reiji Maigo, she could finally proceed toward the Eternal Pitfall to seek out the Snake of the Festival.
She had spent far too much time dealing with Sydonay. In truth, her objectives were solely Bel Peol and Hecate; Sydonay's fate had been irrelevant from the start.
Still…
"A god must reward exceptional valor with a trial worthy of that blazing determination," Nitocris murmured softly to herself.
There would always be gods moved by humanity's stubborn, courageous will—this was why Chaldea had gathered so many deities, and why, in the world of DanMachi, countless gods willingly sealed their own powers to descend and closely watch over humanity's growth.
Even though Sydonay was an invader from another world, even though he was a sinner who had committed innumerable atrocities…
Nevertheless, he had shown Nitocris an unbreakable resolve like tempered steel, a defiant blaze of determination. He had challenged the heavens as a true warrior.
As a god, Nitocris's duty was not to scorn or mock him—but to acknowledge his qualifications, to grant him the right to a trial.
As for the Bal Masqué members who had already escaped, Nitocris could not be bothered with them. Those who hadn't fled in time, however, had all been casually exterminated by Nitocris, their Powers of Existence harvested.
The immense Power of Existence required by the Unrestricted Spell that summoned her had been entirely provided by Nitocris herself. After all, Nitocris had promised Leanan-sidhe to help repair her painting—something requiring no small amount of existence.
Bal Masqué itself was essentially finished. After all, the Trinity was entirely gone—could an organization without the Trinity still call itself Bal Masqué?
It wouldn't be long before this shocking news set off earthquakes across the entire world.